Anyone ever had a nice guy turn super jealous on you?

[halfyorkshiremanhalfessexgirl]

I'm 49, have been in a really open loving relationship for 5 years with a kind, funny, smart man. We live 7 minutes apart both have children.

He is super jealous over any male friendships or connections I have. He has been trying to hide this but it gets triggered once a year as I go work at a festival without him (he has been one year) and he can't cope with me being away from him and it triggers his insecurities really badly. This year he sent me 200 texts over the 5 days.

Of course I can say I'll never go again, or he can come with me but I'm worried about the future that there will always be sonething else.

Any advice?

I wouldn't describe your relationship as loving, sorry.

controlling, more like. your DP is constraining your movements with his jealousy, which means he is deeply insecure and untrusting of you. He needs you in his sights and under his watchful eye and sending you dozens of texts to give you the message he can't trust you to behave as he sees it.

My advice fwiw is firstly to open your eyes and see your relationship for what it actually is, controlling and mildly abusive, bordering on highly abusive because it could escalate at any time to him getting into a jealous rage and threatening you, by the way you've described it. I would seriously consider your future and decide if you want to be restricted more and more as time goes by.

how long has he been behaving like this? Be honest with yourself as to whether he showed signs of this throughout your relationship and was just masking it during the honeymoon phase?

What the previous poster wrote.

This relationship should now end or be at an end. He is also not a decent and or kind role model for your children. Was your previous relationship also abusive and or had elements of controlling behaviour in it too?.

What he is doing here is controlling behaviour and that is from abuse, not his insecurities. Abuse is about power and control and he wants absolute here. He really does want to keep you in a cage of his own paranoid making. Read Why does he do that? By Lundy Bancroft.

Fortunately you live apart so that will make it easier somewhat for the relationship to end. Abusive men like this do take time, years even to recover from. I would also suggest you enrol yourself onto the Freedom program as your boundaries have been harmed by him.

🤢

He should be working on his own issues in counselling to manage his insecurities. Instead he’s pretending to be gone when he isn’t. This then blows up when it gets too much to the point where you are considering changing your behaviour to fix his. But it won’t the goal posts will change and you will need to stop doing more and more in order to please him.
consider your best interests her.

If he is genuinely otherwise very nice, sit down with him and have a really thorough discussion about it. Ask what his fears are. Challenge them calmly. What is it about me personally that you distrust, to make you think I would be unfaithful to you while I am busy working? What is it about me that you think would endanger 5 happy years with a man I love in exchange for a fling with someone at work? Are you worried that given the opportunity this is what you;d do, so you assume I would too? Etc etc.

Once you've established it has nothing to do with you, it's all in his head, set some boundaries. Tell him what you get up to all day and why you can't answer more than one or two texts a day when busy. Point out 200 texts and jealousy about a non-existent affair are genuinely likely to damage your relationship, whereas you being unfaithful is not likely to because you won't be.

If he can't pull himself together and work through this after a proper chat about it, I'd find it hard to respect him. I work away a lot. DH and I chat once, occasionally twice a day. My job is quite glamorous and I come into contact with lots of fascinating people from all over the world while he is stuck at home, but he never doubts me. He knows I'm busy and focused on work as well as trusting that I love him and have zero desire to look elsewhere.

So he thinks that, without him there to stop you, you will cheat on him? How insulting is that?!

I had an ex like that. Used to 'turn up' at my house when I was getting ready to go out with female friends and ask why I was putting on makeup if I was just going out with the girls. Once he even turned up very early in the morning to check if I was alone in my bed! We didn't last.

I bumped into him a couple of years later and was thinking: he is so handsome and clever and fantastically successful and rich - why did I let him slip through my fingers? Until he asked who I was with. I told him I was single. He said, 'Don't lie to me. You must be with someone.' His twisted logic was that I went around telling men I was single to get a quick fling in while keeping my main (non-existent at the time) boyfriend in the dark about my misdeeds. It was so weird. I couldn't get away quick enough.

Interestingly, many years later still, he got in touch with all that 'still carry a torch' shit. He'd split with his wife and was living with his girlfriend half his age but missing me (who he'd not seen for twenty years!) So that's where the unfaithful mindset came from - he was capable of leaving his wife and kids for someone barely out of her teens, and still be bored and looking around.

Thanks everyone your comments are so helpful for me. It's so hard to battle someone else's insecurities.

200 texts in 5 days is a huge amount. Have you been replying? Have you also sent 200 texts in response? Or is he just harassing you? It's not ok OP. You need to have a serious discussion and he may need some professional help. Is there any chance he has cheated on you? My ex got extremely jealous all of a sudden and I found out a year later that he had cheated on me whilst on holiday with his friends and this clearly, in his mind meant I was going to do it too.

He is revoltingly controlling. He’s trying to make you change your behaviour in the future, to keep you in line and behaving how he wants.

Abusive and highly unpleasant. End. He won’t change.

A lot of these posts are totally over the top. That’s what happens at 04:30am. Meanwhile morning has broken and sense may commence.

From what you say he sounds great apart from being insecure. So the insecurity needs tackling you live separately which is ideal.

Does he need a bit of therapy maybe?? Is he carrying scars from being cheated on?

Im definitely not one to give a man an excuse, usually I’m front of the queue to say LTB. But in this case I’m not so sure.

He does carry scars from his past yes. Thanks for adding some balance too in the comments. It's hard when you love someone. He's actually saying he can't cope too, so it might be the end, as I can't give him enough of myself to make him feel secure. To add context I volunteer at the festival for my friend of 30 years. He was convinced I had a thing for him somehow. I really don't- I just value my free ticket!

I’m sorry OP the fact that he is saying he can’t cope and implying you’re the problem - so not acknowledging that 200 texts in 5 days is batshit, is a huge problem. Being hurt in the past is not a reason to control your current partner. Unless he fully accepts that he is the problem and takes action to address his behaviour, you need to protect yourself from this unbalanced person.

100% agree with @Marmalade71 - he is unbalanced, please distance yourself safely from this weirdo.

This year he sent me 200 texts over the 5 days.

Have you spoken to him about how abnormal this is? Surely he knows this isn't healthy behaviour. Is he controlling in other ways? Eg make up, clothes, time with friends and family, work colleagues.

200 texts in 5 days is wildly obnoxious and he's turned extremely controlling. I would end it just because I don't trust or care for controlling men.

When you say your relationship is open, does that mean you've agreed seeing other people is fine?

If you are in an open relationship, he's broken the agreement in an over the top way and that would be the end of that.

I meant open as in we talk a lot and have shared everything about our lives. He realises now that this is to do with his childhood trauma and past relationships but I am a bit broken by the latest obsessive thinking and the resultant haranguing of me in our talks and by text. I'm not sure I feel safe anymore.

Unless he can admit that this is all about him and his insecurities, and nothing to do with you, I would be starting to withdraw from this relationship.

Did your future plans involve living together? I can imagine that his jealousy and insecurity would evolve into even more controlling behaviour once you are under the same roof.

"it triggers his insecurities really badly"

They always say that. Insecurities my arse. What they actually mean is that they don't trust you any further than they could throw a wardrobe; and have such a low opinion of your morals that they assume you will go off and shag the first man that moves.

Be furious with him. Tell him that you are disgusted he has so little faith in you, and that it is his problem to manage, not yours.

Thank you strangers on the Internet how do I help him get help and be kind without getting sucked back in. If I say I want to take a break while he has therapy, is that fair if I'm worried now that this will never work.
We get on really well but this is really concerning for me and has got worse

Sorry but the advice is to drop him. He is not nice - he is trying to control you and stop you doing what you enjoy, to shrink your life to suit his neuroses.

Do not let him change the things you enjoy doing. Who tf does he think he is to behave like this towards you? He is choosing to be like this and it is his issue, his problem. Don't let it be yours.

There are some positives here as you say he knows what he's doing is wrong and thinks it's down to childhood trauma. The onus is on him to take responsibility for his behaviour, stop doing it and get some support.

If you make that a condition of the relationship, then he either stops doing it or you split up.

Thank you strangers on the Internet how do I help him get help and be kind without getting sucked back in. If I say I want to take a break while he has therapy, is that fair if I'm worried now that this will never work.
We get on really well but this is really concerning for me and has got worse

The reason you get on well is because you're a kind person.
Controlling people suck the blood out of people who feel the need to always be kind. He's not being kind to you. Some situations call for a stop to kindness. Some messages need to be blunt. Tell him his issues have put you right off him and you want to be free to live your life. Focus on being kind to yourself.